Mme Lamm II 1894

Anders Zorn's etching of "Mme Lamm II" presents a portrait imbued with the quiet dignity of bourgeois life. Notice the sitter's hands, clasped together in her lap. This gesture, seemingly simple, echoes across centuries of portraiture, hinting at contemplation and restraint. This motif of clasped hands appears in funerary sculpture and Renaissance portraiture, where it symbolizes piety and inner resolve. Think of the countless Madonnas whose hands join in prayer. Here, the gesture is secular, yet it retains a trace of this older, spiritual significance, inviting us to consider the sitter's inner world. Such gestures speak to our collective memory. Zorn taps into something primal, reminding us that each era builds upon the visual vocabulary of the past, continually reinterpreting and reimagining these symbols. Like a river, the symbolic language of gestures flows onward.